PAUL GAUVIN PHOTO
ARMED AND READY is Richard Hodgkins, 76, former Barnstable Airport
manager, one-time pilot to state officials and now a personal fitness trainer
at the Fitness 500 Club, Hyannis.

Ever hear of the aviator who landed on his feet and taxied right into retirement?

Richard Hodgkins, an ex-pilot to state officials and a Barnstable Airport manager in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, embodies that character in the spirit of 76 – his age.

At 6’1” and a toned 205 pounds, Hodgkins had the good sense to know when his flying days were over. He packed up years of considerable experiences and began a disciplined transition into feel-good senior citizenship.

Hodgkins says he welcomes another new year of helping others who are coming ‘round the mountain. He advises them to enjoy the trip by staying fit. That’s why he has morphed from pilot and outdoorsman to personal fitness trainer currently flexing at the 500 Club on North Street in Hyannis and volunteering as land steward for the Barnstable Land Trust.

Contemplating a new year, we perspired into a conversation at the 500 Club one recent morning over the latest trial balloon floating over this area, the one about building an indoor water park off Yarmouth’s Route 28. It would feature lots of fun stuff including an 800-car parking lot.

Upon learning Hodgkins had once been airport manager in Hyannis grappling with the infamous airport rotary gridlock, he was asked if he thought the plan for such an extensive dream world would negatively affect traffic in Hyannis, particularly the rotary and the other problem intersection at Route 28 and Willow Street.

“I know (developer) Louis Nickinello,” Hodgkins said. “He can be satisfied he got as far as a design and should just put it in a drawer. There was one of those inflatable water parks on Route 28 at one time and after about three years it folded up.”

Hodgkins isn’t anti-business, he says, just pro-Cape Cod as it is, without the glitzy trappings of the New Jersey shore marring the peninsula’s natural virtues and further congesting its high-season traffic.

“I’m a biker,” he explained, “and many are the days I set out at 5:30 a.m. to pedal along Route 28 all the way to Chatham. I see a car only occasionally at that hour. But when I return, I use the bike trail because even a bicycle gets caught up in the gridlock on 28.” He can’t imagine anyone wanting to add to the congestion.

His view is not surprising. Hodgkins’ association with the land trust exemplifies an appreciation for the beauty of the trust’s latest acquisitions of verdant pastures rolling down to water, now preserved for passive enjoyment for the masses.

Hodgkins isn’t anti-progress either, but prefers preserving and maintaining what exists, as an item in a 1973 issue of The Barnstable Patriot attests: “Is the honeymoon over for the financial independence enjoyed by the Barnstable Municipal Airport in recent years? The self-sustaining darling of municipal government appears to be reaching for the fiscal till in search for ‘long overdue improvements,’ which Airport Manager Richard Hodgkins told the Patriot this week included roof leaks, termite damage, and obsolete equipment, all of which need attention…”

In this respect, maintenance of the town’s infrastructure and natural gifts extends, for him, to the maintenance of the human body as well, particularly when it approaches its most vulnerable downhill years.

He isn’t a “do as I say” type. He prefers showing the way by example, without proselytizing. “I’m a minimalist,” he says, “what you might call voluntary simplicity. I don’t watch television, I’m a vegetarian, and I live in a small cottage,” even though he owns several larger properties.

For entertainment, Hodgkins pedals his bicycle regularly and spends much of his time in the gym training others of his generation who want to keep their bodily machinery working. In the warm seasons, he also paddles a kayak guiding visitors on nature tours along the Parker River in Yarmouth. Take note: his chosen entertainment requires the output of physical energy that, along with diet, keeps high-mileage bodies functioning, he says.

For mental exercise, Hodgkins attends intermittent fitness instruction classes, reads the news, an assortment of periodicals and devours books on Cape Cod/Boston history along with fact and fiction works. “I’ve read all of John Steinbeck, every single book, some of them twice,” he says with a smile.

His career in aviation began at age 17 in Boston when he joined the Air National Guard. Later he simultaneously studied at Northeastern and Wentworth, but abandoned formal education because “I soon found out that aeronautics was for me,” and went for it. He worked as ground crew for the Guard, landed a full-time airplane maintenance job at Logan and later qualified for fixed-wing and helicopter pilot training while on loan to the regular army.

That training propelled him into positions as pilot for state officials including former Gov. John Volpe, who later became U. S. Secretary of Transportation; as an inspector for the state aeronautics commission, which he later directed; and a host of other aeronautical posts in this state and New York. He then worked for a time setting up heliports on roofs of hospitals nationwide while transitioning into semi-retirement.

Always an outdoorsman, he was a kayak instructor and guide in the gator- and snake-haven of the Florida Everglades for six years, then took a full-time, year-long fitness training course to keep himself physically able to share fitness skills with others, specializing in training for seniors.

From this corner, Hodgkins may no longer be flying but he’ll still be winging it in the new year. And like earlier dreams, such as a convention center in Hyannis’ 500 block or an Exit 6 1/2, don’t expect to see an indoor water park in 2013.